'Godzilla: The Planet Eater' Announces Special Premiere

The final Godzilla anime film, The Planet Eater, will reportedly premiere at a special venue in November — the Tokyo International Film Festival.

Godzilla: The Planet Eater is the third part of an anime film trilogy about the giant lizard. The movie directly follows Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle and Godzilla: Planet of Monsters, both of which were distributed by Netflix in the U.S. The grand finale to the trilogy will get a more serious treatment, however, as Anime News Network reports that it will debut at Tokyo's massive film festival on Nov. 3, 2018.

The Planet Eater will be the last movie to play at the festival, which runs from Oct. 25 to Nov. 3. It will reportedly be screened at Roppongi Hills, EX Theater Roppongi and the Hibiya Step Square all at once. The movie will they officially reach theaters in Japan the followingw weekend on Friday, Nov. 9.

Unfortunately, home viewers will have to wait quite a bit longer to see the dramatic ending. Godzilla: The Planet Eater is not scheduled to join its predecessors on Netflix until Jan. 17, 2019. So far, the movies have followed a unique continuity, combining Godzilla's many friends and enemies into one colossal event and throwing aliens into the mix for good measure. Ultimately, one group of visitors helped humanity flea from planet Earth, giving it over entirely to Godzilla and the rest of the monsters.

Thanks to the relativity of time in space travel, humanity returns to try and reclaim Earth 20 years later by their time, only to find that 20,000 years have passed on the planet. Earth is now primarily the domain of monsters, with Godzilla presiding over them. A few humans have survived, however, and agree to help them fight the monster.

Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle ends on a massive cliffhanger, with humanity hiding out in a cave with little hope for their survival. As for the "Planet Eater" in the upcoming sequel, its identity was teased in a post-credit scene, where an alien explains that his home planet was destroyed by a monster even more fearsome than Godzilla: Ghidorah.

The trilogy has been praised for its unique and self-contained take on the Godzilla franchise. The property has been of even more interest lately, as a sequel to the 2015 live-action version is now in the works. Godzilla: King of the Monsters, starring Millie Bobby Brown, is due out in May of 2019. After that, a follow-up called Godzilla vs. Kong is in the works.

Godzilla: The Planet Eater will be streaming on Netflix on Jan. 17, 2019.